


I Don’t Subscribe to Spandex

by aliengirlguy



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Marvel Universe, Mostly Gen, Multi, Not giving a shit Peter, Other, Peter Parker-Early Powers, Peter not fond of supes, Peter using brains for own gain, Practical Peter, Rated for Wade, Romance is way way waaaay in the future., Runaway Peter, Spideypool - Freeform, Tony attempts at parent Tony Stark, Well maybe a little
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2019-09-11 23:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16861774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliengirlguy/pseuds/aliengirlguy
Summary: A Spiderman/marvel-Universe AU in which Peter at a young age looses all his family in one fell swoop, forcing him to grow up taking care of himself, a brilliant orphan with a secret of his own to hide. Tony Stark takes an interest in Peter’s genius and and the mystery surrounding the boy. Somewhere along the way, Peter is forced out of his isolation  and must contend himself being part of a world he never wanted to be part of in the first place.





	1. The Repercussions of Saying No.

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly gen, but there will be some romance, when Petey is legal (18 in this fic), possible Spideypool.

If there was one thing that Peter Parker could say was anathema to his sensibilities, it was Superheroes.

Oh, don’t get him wrong, he appreciated the motives behind what they did, but having all those adoring, needy, grasping eyes turned in one’s direction, the epic and not so epic battles that tore up streets, buildings...lives. Being gawked with adoringor hateful fervor …the very idea made his skin crawl.

Oh, certainly he could quip up a storm and hold his own when dealing with public confrontations, or occasionally when he was dragged up onto a stage during an assembly a couple times to receive yet another academic award that looked great for his college applications, but otherwise earned him a few stints shoved into a locker or a head down a toilet, an nothing really extraordinary, at least, so he thought at the time.

But that was inevitable consequences of being the smartest person in high school. This was not ego talking, it was simply fact, and yes, he could perhaps play it down if he wanted to, and there were times he sorely wanted to, but he had plans, plans that involved his own small cozy lab somewhere where he could make a decent living lost among all the other lab coats, or perhaps a tiny house somewhere with a basement while teaching high-school science.

Peter was a genius, but he was also a practical genius.

Those few that knew him, or at least were acquainted with him long enough to exchange conversation with him, he wasn’t the most personable sort and didn’t really do friends either, and eventually those few who tried to include the solitary brainiac came to the conclusion that if you ever wanted to make Peter run for the hills, just mention anything even squinting of capes and spandex.

Unfortunately, it was these spandex individuals who were the most popular subject matter in school. No matter where he went, he would find this or that Johnny Storm, Black Widow, Black Panther, etc. Pin-up in nearly every locker. MJ, the longest hold out of Peter’s stubbornly labeled acquaintances, an editor and reporter for Midtown High’s Paper, the MH Daily, liked to tease Peter by taping up a picture of a luxurious bedroom that she had torn from a magazine somewhere and had artfully scrawled “the Sexy Susan Storm” she would primly proclaim, in all smirking seriousness, that The Invisible Woman was draped on the bed provocatively, crooking her finger. The style of the lingerie tended to change with each retelling.

Yes, all foibles and kidding aside, Peter was a person with a goal. He had worked hard to get where he was, was working hard to get to where he saw himself going, and science was the key to his future.

Of course, he didn’t take into consideration that his own genius would lead to the very thing he had hoped to avoid, laying all his careful work to ruin.

It had all started with a series of random pop quizzes in the many varied Advanced Sciences classes at his school. He didn’t think it was unusual when the teachers all told them, with eager faces, that it was just some fun brain teasers, with a chance for a reward. He had thought it was just extra incentive to push the advanced students a bit more, maybe yet another academic medal or even a modest bursary if he was lucky. Money was always needed and useful.

Peter had shrugged and agreed to participate, and had enjoyed the various challenging quandaries that were emailed to him and the other advanced Students. They had been told that they could do any amount of the selection that they wanted, and that they were due within a few months, the last few weeks before the end of the school year.

Some of the sample questions he could immediately recognize from such sources as Oscorp or Stark Industries, even a fascinating one on Gamma Radiation and its various colorful variables in mutations that he recognized as the work of Dr. Banner pre-Hulk days. Again he didn’t think much of it, it was not necessarily uncommon to find various leaked or discarded equations online, or use published ones designed for this very purpose.

He’d had a very enjoyable Christmas holidays, one of the best in ages, just puttering around with them.

When he was done, he turned in the finished material on a jump drive with his name labelled neatly on the side to his Home Room teacher, Mr. Felt, who’d grunted “Well, first one, not surprised its you Mr. Parker.” Peter didn’t take it personally, his history teacher had always been rather cantankerous.

For the next few days, things went along like usual. He woke up, went to school, attended meetings and duties, went home, made himself a sandwich, did his homework, binged a TV show, then went to bed. It was all entirely how he liked it.

Then Peter was called into the Principal’s office just as Chemistry let out for lunch period.

Peter paused, confused. The only time he had been called to the Principal’s office was usually related to his latest bully incident, but judging by the confused expression mirrored on Flash’s face as to why he wasnt called to, his main bully being busy the past few weeks with practice for the big game, so nothing major had happened to warrant yet another attempt at adult interference.

So with no small amount of trepidation he made his way to Principal Diesel’s office.

The Principal was a stout, 50’something woman who had once been a silver mentalist Bodybuilder before popping a kneecap in a car accident. After that incident, she retired and eventually became involved in education. Some students theorized that she could still bend nails with her bare teeth just like rumors claim she once did in college.

“Well then Mr. Parker,” The women drawled, all dark green tweed, rippling biceps and greyed red curls sitting behind her imposing dark metal desk, “I must say, this is an unexpected pleasure this time when your sitting across from me and its not attached to Mr. Flash Thompson.”

Peter nodded vaguely, only half aware of what she was saying as his eyes were pinned on the face of the most famous genius Billionaire on the planet. Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, who was lounging in one of those uncomfortable guest chairs as if it were a throne, and watching him in turn, a considering look in his eyes as his dark thick eyebrows pulled up slightly and he stroked his chestnut goatee thoughtfully.

“Well, I knew you’d be a high school kid, I just didn’t think you would be so young,” was the first thing Stark said when there was a lull in the Principal’s excited rumbles, “What are you? 13? 14?”

Peter’s spine straightened in offense and he glowered at the amused man, “I’m 16, Tindick” Peter snapped, his own eyes narrow behind his cheap tapped horn rimmed glasses.

“Peter!” the Principal exclaimed at his rudeness.

Stark snorted, looking amused, then gave Peter a more thorough once over that made the teen’s ears turn a deep red under his messy pale brown hair, “…and keeping with the classic nerd stereotypical look I see.”

Peter’s nostrils flared, then he turned to the Principal and said stiffly, “If your looking for someone to give…Mr. Stark a tour of the school or something, perhaps you should asked MJ Watson or Gwen Stacey, from what the tabloids say, he seems to have a personal preference for blonds and red heads.”

“Mr. Parker!” The principal’s voice had a dangerous edge.

Stark, instead of being insulted, yet again smirked again at Peter’s cheek, brushing it off, and even chuckled, responding with,

“Touche Mr. Parker.”

“Peter, please take a seat,” the principal sighed, rubbing her temples and shooting Stark a look that plainly said ‘don’t encourage bad manners’ before turning back to Peter, who had grudgingly taken the seat beside Stark, but made a point to shuffle his chair as far away from the man as possible.

“Mr. Stark isn’t here to tour the school,” The woman explained with restrained patience, “Mr. Stark is here to offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Stark at this point took over the conversation grandly, “So kid, how would you like to come work for me? a paid student internship of course, but if what I saw in those results from the sample quizzes sent out is any indication, I can guarantee you’ll have a position at Stark Enterprises once you graduate from high school and college.”

There was a deafening silence as Peter took in what he was hearing. He could see the smug look on the man’s face, already expecting Peter’s enthusiastic agreement.

Stark’s expectation and smugness was well earned in that, he was exceptionally popular, an exceptional super-genius, and an out Superhero, oh, and the Billionaire owner of Stark Industries.

He was therefore truly surprised with Peter’s reply.

“No thanks.”

There was a beat of silence, Tony’s chipper smirk unraveling in the corners into something confused, like he wasn’t sure if Peter was kidding or not.

The Principal meanwhile, while not particularly close to Mr. Parker, was nonetheless well aware of a certain very true rumor, and knew her student was very serious indeed.

“Peter, Perhaps you should-” the Principal stopped speaking when Peter lifted a hand, and she got a good look at his eyes.

Sheer unadulterated distainful determination.

“I know what Mr. Stark is offering,” he said quietly, but firmly, “But I can’t accept.”

Peter got to his feet, gave a stiff head nod towards the Principal, glowered at Tony, and left without saying anything more, body tense.

ooo ooo ooo

Tony climbed back into his limo and Happy began the drive back to the Avengers Tower.

He had been turned down. He, Tony Stark, whose brain, body, tech or a combination of all three had been the wet dreams and stuff of legends for young scientists in the making for years! He, Tony Stark, who had politicians of every flavor begging for his table scraps, the man who had even talked permanent glower power Nick Fury into wearing a dark purple cardigan to work once.

Tony Stark, who had just been turned down by a damn teenager, without even a reason, just a “nope, see ya!”

What the hell?!

“Friday,” he snapped to his AI.

“Yes sir?” a pleasant female voice came from his wrist where the world’s most hi-tech computer/bracelet wrested casually under his suit.

“Give me everything you have on subject: Peter Parker, 16. Student from Midtown High, and apparently a super-genius who doesn’t know a good thing when it falls into his lap!”

“Yes sir,” the AI replied crisply, “while I am searching, shall I open a link with Ms. Potts so you can update her on the status of her project?”

Tony felt himself pale slightly. His red headed former personal aide, now co-head of Stark Industries, had begun the Young Genius Program as a way to encourage the Sciences among youth. An internship for promising talents, that would soon become valuable members of powerful industries who would benefit on having groomed geniuses on their rosters.

The YGP was a joint program spread out all over the world through several different enterprises, including Stark Industries. It had the side benefit of appealing to the competitive nature among the various industries as well, and Pepper always approved of healthy competition, particularly if Stark Industries had the best stable of geniuses hand groomed by Stark industries, and likely to be more loyal for the opportunity offered.

It was their luck that when the first results had come back from the sample tests that was provided from a wide variety of said enterprises, and a few other contributing agents, had come to the attention of Friday, and Mr. Parker pinged the system. Stark had been reluctantly impressed with the results. The kid had not only been one of the first to turn in his answers, but, quite simply put, he was almost on Tony’s level of brilliance, which is saying something.

The idea of such a burgeoning mind  like Peter’s wandering around, prime for the plucking of his competitors, or someone a lot more nefarious looking to woo impressionable minds, made him shiver in distaste. He had agreed, with only token reluctance, in going in person himself to give the kid the offer.

No one had suspected that the most promising candidate so far, and likely to be the most promising over all, was in no way interested in agreeing with endgame that the YGP had been aiming for (secretly of course, they hadn’t wanted to be overwhelmed with wannabes that didn’t have the smarts).

On the way back to the car, the impressive looking principal had been of little help in clarifying her student’s refusal, only apologizing for wasting his time, muttering confusing things like “should have known, he is Iron Man after all…”

He had tried to demand clarification, but the woman just shook her head, saying tiredly, “I’m sorry, that’s for Peter to say, and not my place, Mr. Stark. The only thing I can say, is that, if you sent someone else, instead of coming yourself…” she paused shook her head, “no, never mind, Peter would have still turned the offer down anyway, now that I think about it, since your still the head of it all,” a deep sigh, then said briskly, taking his hand and giving it a crushing handshake, “It was a pleasure meeting you Mr. Stark, I wish it could have worked out, and I assure you, its nothing personal, good bye.”

The woman had dropped his now aching appendage and marched off towards a line of green metal dumpsters where a group of students were loitering with an air of crack down about her.

Tony slouched against the plush leather of his bright red Bentley grumpily, how the heck was he not supposed to take all that personally? and for that matter, what was it about him that made it an automatic no-go? Was the kid a Loki fan or something?

Tony shook his head, ‘Nah, the kid doesn’t strike me as being into horny gods with daddy issues,’

_Somewhere…_

Loki the Trickster sneezed suddenly into his Fruit Wheaties, grumbling curse words to himself as he cleaned half chewed cereal off his overlarge Iron Man T-shirt.

_Back to the story…_

“Sir, I am done my search on subject Peter Parker,” without being asked, Friday projected the gathered information in a hologram. Tony flicked through the information. He raised his brow when he noticed just how…little there was about the boy.

He was indeed 16, if on the weeny side of it, the expected stellar grades, baring Phys Ed, which had a small note regarding written essays in lue of participation due to an undisclosed health issue. Tony frowned at that, wondering what it was. The kid was pretty skinny, maybe it played a part into his refusal?

He was further flummoxed when he couldn't find anything related to his health at all. As if he'd never seen a doctor before. Not anything beyond birth records anyway. Weird and worrying.

One particular section caught his eye and produced a spurt of sympathy, as his files also noted that Peter had lost his parents and his great aunt and uncle in a car crash when he was 7.

Tony grimaced, man that was rough. He never got along with his old man much, but he had loved his mother dearly, and both he and his father had been wrecked by her death when he was not much older then Peter himself.

After that, Peter went to stay at a foster home for a time, before a distant relative was located and took him in, where he still currently resides.

Perhaps if he approached the boy’s guardian?

In case anyone was wondering, Tony Stark was not a man that takes a “No” lightly, especially if the refusal is surrounded with confusing ego pricking ambiguity and a dash of mystery.

Tony grimaced when he saw that the address was an apartment complex smack dab in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen.

This particular section of New York was one of the most crime ridden sections of the city. It was almost like another city unto itself. It was also managed by its own vigilante, Daredevil, a recent super that had popped up out of seeming nowhere a few years ago, and was noted for being extremely territorial of his protectorate. Tony had made the mistake once of doing a flyby in Hell’s Kitchen one night and had been annoyed to find a sucker tipped arrow attached to his metal backside with a bright red DD on a tiny flag when he got back to Avenger Tower. The accompanying note wrapped around the shaft had been short.

_“Keep your metal ass out of Hell’s Kitchen or next time the arrow wont be kid-proofed.”_

Clint had a pretty good laugh over the episode, and amidst his amused chuckles, the Avengers agreed that, unless anything world-ending was taking place, they would stay out of Daredevil’s way.

Fortunately for Tony, it looked like he wasn't going to be able to continue to keep his promise, as a bit more digging by Friday revealed something rather interesting.

According to the information, 123 Spooner St had recently been torn down due to instability in the infrastructure, there was nothing but a vacant lot now. Mr. Rodriguez, Peter’s listed guardian who had actually lived there at the time, was also listed as having recently gone to live with his kids in Florida.

Tony raised his eyebrows humming “Well, well…” and cracked his knuckles, the mystery that was Peter Parker deepens.

He called up his holographic keyboard, and began pushing deeper, referencing and cross-referencing what he could find, fingers dancing over the keys with efficient ease.

“Why that little dickens!” Tony exclaimed when he was done, sitting back, and despite his ire over his ego bruising at the hands of said teenager earlier, was yet again reluctantly impressed.

He had only caught on perhaps because the demolition and Rodriguez’s move happened just a few days ago, likely Petey boy hadn’t yet caught onto the change. Once Tony had pulled on the thread, he unraveled a fascinatingly complex web of falsifying records, forged documents, deleted personal records rotated out with new ones with a sprinkle of just the right amount of truth, such as Peter being an orphan, to hold it all together. Even Mr. Rodriguez was a good choice as a cover guardian, as he was elderly and infirm, which meant that he would be dismissed from mandatory teacher parent meeting or any other events expected of parents, and likely the boy forged the man’s signature when needed.

“Jesus Mr. Parker,” Tony breathed, “what the hell!?”

Tony considered what he was going to do with the information. He knew he really should turn it over to the Principal. After all he was an underage kid falsifying personal information, and highly likely in some sort of potentially dangerous situation, and definitely without any sort of legal adult supervision, and judging by what he had found so far, had likely been doing this for quite sometime, and no one would go through all this for so long if they didn’t have a really good reason to do so.

“Sir?” Friday interrupted his reverie, “It’s Ms. Potts, she wanted to know how your talk with Mr. Parker went? and she wants to know whether Mr. Parker would appreciate the red or the blue room at the tower during his stay.”

Tony groaned, how was he going to tell Pepper that her prize intern had not only refused, but was a felon who had broken who knows how many laws for how many years?

Then he caught on to the last part of the message.

“Why would I care about spare rooms?” Tony asked.

“Part of the Prize sir, Ms. Potts is converting a floor at Stark Towers to living quarters for the winners to stay in during their tenure. The full immersion tactic she called it.”

Tony hummed, stroking his goatee, an idea beginning to form in his brilliant noggin.

“Tell Pepper Peter was unable to attend the meeting because he was ill at home, I will follow up in a few days.”

A brief pause then, “Ms. Potts expresses sympathy for Mr. Parker’s…illness, but stresses to not leave it to long. Apparently Oscorp is showing interest in the boy’s results and I quote ‘is circling the waters’ and Dr. Reed Richards from Baxter Towers is expressing interest in taking on the boy as well.”

Stark felt the light of competition flare. Reed and Oscorp where some of his biggest competition, particularly Reed. The idea that the kid might say yes to Mr. Rubberband Man when he had already turned down the much more fabulous Tony outright, rankled. Then there was Norman Osborn, who would not hesitate in taking advantage of Peter when, not if, he found out that Parker was essentially his own agent. He’d eat that kid for breakfast, slowly.

So, Tony formulated a plan. He would have Friday keep track of Peter’s records, and when the kid hacked the system to make the necessary alterations, Friday would track his digital trail, impressively scrambled as it was, back to its source. After all, for all Parker’s hacking talents, no little commercial computer software he was using was a match for one of his AI’s.


	2. The Unwelcome Mat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has another chat with Peter, it goes somewhat how you'd expect.

Tony had only needed to wait a few hours it turned out before the Parker kid seemed to finally notice that his current cover needed fine-tuning. Friday alerted Tony while the man was enjoying a quiet moment in Central Park with a scoop of chocolate mint ice cream.

Tony was tickled that it had actually taken his AI longer then either of them postulated for her to find a back door in the kid’s firewalls, and provide Tony an address, just refreshing Tony’s determination to get this kid to say “Yes” to his deal.

He had to admit, upon arrival at Parker’s real home, he had pictured a variety of scenarios. Some hole in the wall somewhere, a seedy motel, what he hadn’t expected was a nondescript clean apartment building in the Bronx.

He scanned the name plates next to the buzzer inside the door and frowned, of course none of them said Parker or Peter, and apparently didn’t list apartment numbers, just last names.

Then luck seemed to be with him when the inner door to the building opened revealing a little old lady who had a multitude of small dogs and cats on rhinestone leashes in attendance.

“Excuse me,” Tony called to her, catching the woman’s attention. Tony casually leaned against a wall and made sure his face was exposed enough to give her his patent Stark Smile. He’d made Fury blush once, for a second, with this smile, and he wasn’t disappointed when the woman flushed and giggled like a stereotypical school girl.

"I hope you can help me, you see, I am trying to find a cousin of mine,” Tony affected a tragic look, “an uncle of ours recently passed and he was so close to my cousin you see, he wanted to make sure the scamp would be settled in life and was left quite a sizable inheritance. Unfortunately, we’ve had some difficulties getting in touch,” he pulled out the class picture that he had printed from Parker’s school file, “this is him.”

The woman peered a the image and clucked in sympathy, “I am sorry to hear about your loss, poor dear,” she patted his arm, “as for your cousin, why yes, I do recognize him, yes, young Pete Tibellus, lives in the apartment above mine, such a nice boy, always willing to help me with repair work in the apartment, hooked up my cable to! never looking for an ounce of money or reward, probably lonely, poor lad, father is overseas, a military man you understand, barely has time to get back to see the young man.”

‘I’ll bet,’ Tony thought dryly.

“Anyway, you head on right up, he’s on the top most floor, apartment 2809. So nice to see someone finally taking care of him, he’s such a good boy.”

He thanked the woman gratefully, and went inside.

The inside was just as nondescript as the outside. All beige walls and fake prints of scenery doting the lobby. A plain metal elevator with a linoleum floor smelling like Lemon pledge accompanied his trip upwards to the 28th floor.

Tony expected a variety of different reactions to his presence of course. Panic as Parker realized that the jig was up, the most prominent possibility. To this end, he had changed into more casual cloths, a grey sweater and blue jeans, to make him seem more approachable and less threatening, and he held a case of root-beer and a bag stuffed with chips, hoping to try the bro-buddy approach.

What he didn’t expect was the barrel of a riffle to lodge itself snugly under his goatee before he even had a chance to knock, appearing from a crack in the door.

“Get. In,” the boy snarled, Brown eyes deadly and narrowed.

Tony did what the teen said and, keeping his movements slow and his hands above his head, he slid inside and closed the door with a hip, grimacing when he accidentally clocked himself with the six-pack.

There was a tense moment in which Tony idly wondered how his friends and various arch-nemesis would take it if, out of all the epic battles and occasional assassination attempts, it was a damn teenager with a fucking riffle that finally defeated Iron Man, armed with nothing more then a bunch of snacks.

Fortunately for Tony’s postmortem reputation, the kid lowered his riffle once Tony was made to take a seat in a surprisingly comfortable easy chair in a plan ordinary living room filled with ratty used furniture, a plain grey rug, and a wall practically bursting with various scribbled notes and blueprints. Below that was a desk, held up on one end by a brick, strewn with tools, machine parts, and what looked like several laptops conjoined together in some horror-show of melded wires and circuit boards, each screen streaming code.

The boy slung a sheet over the lot, much to his disappointment, before Tony could get a good look at it.

“Jesus kid, this is quite the set-up you got going on,” he said finally into the tense silence, “though your a little far from Florida.”

When Peter just tightened his grip on the riffle, the tense silence thickening with promising violence, Tony cleared his throat and said.

“I brought snacks and brewskies!” he held up the bag of snacks and gave it an inviting shake, the plastic crinkling.

The kid blinked a few times, grumbled under his breath a few things that seemed rather anatomically impossible with his Iron Man helmet, but otherwise the pending murder in the air seemed to lessen.

“What the hell do you want from me boots for balls? Me saying “no thanks” was not an invitation for you to nose around in my damn life! Which, by the way certainly isn’t creepy, at all, stalking a minor much?” the last part was said part mocking part threatening.

“Well, aren’t you the little dickens?” Tony drawled, setting the bags on the floor and sitting back, crossing a leg, “running around all on his lonesome, falsifying his identity, and doing who knows what to afford living in a one bedroom apartment in the Bronx. As a concerned citizen, I of course suspected that such a troubled youth would need help from someone older and wiser in such matters, and would likely be commended for trying to help a scared orphan in dire straights,” Tony’s voice was also mocking and also making a rejoined point.

Peter grit his teeth, like he wanted nothing better then to tell Tony where to stick his good Samaritansim, but then his shoulders seemed to slump as he deflated, his head hung, the floppy ends of his wild hair briefly hiding his face, “Hell, Stark,” the voice was tired and sounded suspiciously like he was close to tears.

“Why couldn’t you have just left well enough alone? Do you have any idea how long it took me to set this all up? I was so close damn it,” Tony felt a thrill of alarm when a watery sob broke the teen’s voice, “Another year, I would have graduated early, with my grades I could have gone to college on a scholarship, a part-time job. I could have gotten a degree in sciences, gone on to teach in a highschool while working on my own projects, pay for an apartment without actually lying about whose paying the rent….but nooooo….a man who couldn’t take no for an answer from some kid he doesn’t even know or care about decided to snoop around and now its all down the crapper!”

That’s when the teen put a hand over his eyes and his shoulders began to shake.

Tony began to panic, he was not good around crying people, especially crying kids, and it didn’t help that he now felt like a heel on top of it all, despite the fact that everything about Peter’s situation was questionable at best.

“Look, it really isn’t all that bad!” Tony said hastily, leaning forward and trying to think frantically on what to do, then remembered why he had come here in the first place and focused on that, “I mean, I can help you sort this all out. I have connections, you don’t need to run from whatever it is your running from. I can protect you. I can even make sure that some of the more illegal things you’ve been doing don’t make it on your permanent record.”

Tony took a risk and gently grabbed one trembling hand, “Just think Peter, I can give you protection, help, education, a place to stay. The Internship includes room and board, you’d be set for life Peter. Just tell me what this is all about, no matter what, I promise I’ll help you.”

A shuttering sigh, “You…you promise? that everything will be OK?”

“Of course” Tony said reassuringly, feeling his shoulders relax.

Another sigh, and the kid raised his face from his hand to reveal a dry face, “Never make a promise that is impossible to keep Tinman,” and before Tony completely registered that he had been duped, Peter raised the riffle and pulled the trigger.

A near silent expulsion of air and Tony’s frozen body jerked. Tony’s eyes widened and his hand flew to his belly, and pulled out a red and blue fletched dart.

Tony Stark only had enough time to blink in confusion before he slumped backwards, unconscious.

Peter sighed as he stood up, slinging the dart gun on one shoulder with ease and set about grabbing his things and shoving them into two large worn dufflebags he saved for just such an occasion.

He hadn’t been completely lying to Stark when he had said all that he did, and he was indeed quite upset, but he’d known there might be a possibility that he would be found out at some point one day. And it had partly been his own fault, he’d become lax in keeping updated on his fabricated life.

Once everything of relevance was packed he slung the dufflebags, each almost as big as he was which he slung carefully over a shoulder with casual ease, he pulled up his hoodie, and walked out of his home of the past three years without looking back.

He had  just about made it to the bus stop at the corner of the street when Peter felt that buzz of danger in the back of his head which caused him to instinctively jump out of the way as a metal hand made a grab for him.

It was Iron Man…or to be more accurate, Iron Man’s suit, which was hovering slightly above his head, a prim female voice echoed from within.

“It would be advisable if you come with me Mr. Parker. I am not programed to harm normally, but you have incapacitated Mr. Stark and thus I can read it as a threat to his person and act accordingly towards his protection, which is apprehending the one who hurt him, I must ask that you please come quietly.”

Peter snorted, “Yeah, and I’m the Hulk,” Peter quipped.

“I must warn you Mr. Parker, probability is high that if you do not co-operate, you may find the alternative apprehension methods highly uncomfortable.”

“I find everything about this situation uncomfortable,” Peter replied grumpily and was about to dodge, glowing hand be damned, the tingle in his brain practically screaming at him, when he was startled by a painful stab in the back of his shoulder.

He whirled around to find a second Iron Man suit lowering its arm. Peter shakily reached behind him and pulled out a blue fletched dart.

“Huh,” Peter found himself actually laughing a little as he staggered between the two robots, “Well what do you know? great minds really do think alike in some things.”

Things became muzzy and, while he still tried to put up a fight, necessitating a few more darts in the process and finally, he was caught as things went black.

Friday caught the subdued boy in metal arms, and used the other suit to gather the boy’s things, before flying off to meet the third suit which was currently cradling her maker, and retired to the Avengers Tower.


End file.
